HELLO to all Splinterlands readers of my humble blog.👋🏻👋🏻👋🏻 Welcome to yet another week of the "new" iteration of the Splinterlands Weekly Challenges 😜.

For any old Hivers/Splinterland players who've just come back and are confused, fret not! Even with the name and format tweaks, right at it's core, battles are still the foundation of these posts.

In this week's edition of Battle Mage Secrets, I most fondly recall one of the original World of Warcraft Paladin memes. The "Bubble Hearth"! 🤣 I'm sure everyone who has ever played WOW will have remembered the most iconic Paladin skill Divine Shield which grants full immunity to all attacks against him. Well, similarly, this week's ruleset works on the same principles, immunity from attacks! Now our entire team can have their own bubbles. No hearthstoning away though. There is no retreat in battle for Splinterlands! 😈

No matter! I present to you the ruleset — HOLY PROTECTION 🫧🛡️🫧

The game's description of HOLY PROTECTION is as follows: "All units gain the Divine Shield ability."

So... what is Divine Shield? Simply put, much like the aforementioned "paladin's bubble", Divine Shield reduces the first attack against them to ZERO. Basically, you get a free round of ultimate defence. No matter how high the damage is being inflicted, it gets reduced to completely nothing.

That makes this a really strong defensively ability and allows even the weakest unit to gain a lot more lasting power on the battlefield. Needless to say, I feel this allows for a more offensive lineup with more allowances given to glass cannon units too.

I will take advantage of this ruleset in my battle showcase today to show how 1 of my units in particular becomes a lot stronger than one would expect with HOLY PROTECTION. Introducing the Dragon splinter unit, LARISSA KERATO.

Larissa is not what anyone would expect as a Gloridax champion Gladiator, but she was enrolled by the Dragons nonetheless. She is one of the only remaining members of a proud waning race known as the chamen, whose story is tragic at its worst and brilliantly heroic at its best. The legend says that the last battalion of chamen warriors faced off against an indestructible enemy, the loathsome Titan of Doom. Knowing they would be destroyed, the brave mages and soldiers of the chamen rode off to intercept their enemy as it bore down on the innocent city of Athua that they had called home for many generations. The battle raged for three days, and every last chamen warrior was destroyed, but the Titan was far from unscathed. Its injuries were enough to cause it to retreat into the storm cloud from whence it came without inflicting any harm on the city of Athua, whose residents heard nothing of the chamen’s deeds.

From Splinterlands Lore on LARISSA KERATO

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LARISSA KERATO is a Rare card released during the Gladius expansion. At LEVEL 1, it has 2 ⚔️Magic ATTACK⚔️ and 2 🏃🏻SPEED🏃🏻, with 0 🛡️ARMOR🛡️ and 3 ❤️HEALTH❤️. It has the DOUBLESTRIKE & AMPLIFY ability. It's summoning cost is 7 🧪MANA🧪.

As a unit itself, LARISSA KERATO might look lacklustre. In fact, I would say that at 7 mana, her raw stats are on the lower end. However, what is often overlooked is her ability — Doublestrike AND Bloodlust. What this does is double her damage and if she lands the killing blow, all her stats are increased too! This quickly turns her into an unstoppable monster with a few lucky hits.

This could make all the difference if the battle comes down to the wire where the slightest advantage is the fine line between victory or defeat! 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻 This is definitely what I'd consider game changing! 😱😱😱

⚔️🛡️My Battle Showcase🛡️⚔️

Let me present a battle I fought recently in which the ruleset HOLY PROTECTION was in effect. My opponent used the Chaos Legion edition Summoner Tarsa from the FIRE splinter as his main pick, while I used the Soulbound Rewards edition Summoner Helio Matriarch from the DRAGON splinter. 🔥 VS 🐉

At first glance, it would seem like I was at a distinct disadvantage.

• My opponent's summoner was at level 4 compared to mine at 3.

• His units were also significantly higher level than mine across the board. My units weren't maxed out for their level, while my opponent, already having a level advantage over me, had his all maxed out! 😱

• This gave his entire team a huge increase in raw damage output.

I was honestly expecting this to be a really bad matchup for me 😜🤣. This was a team who had an innate advantage just through their superior levels alone. Would I be able to turn the tide of battle against such an opponent then? Victory or defeat would lie in the small details.

I would say that the ruleset HOLY PROTECTION was DEFINITELY the MVP of this match, having played it's role in turning the tide of battle. The advantage it gave my team resulted in me outlasting my opponent in this battle. It definitely provided the edge that I needed to overcome my opponent.

This ensured that the other units could eventually wear down the opponent until victory was achieved! 🏆🏆🏆

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LINK TO MY FIGHT

👯‍♀️👯👯‍♂️LINEUP CHOICES👯‍♀️👯👯‍♂️

1st CARD SLOT

The Dumacke Orc is chosen for this slot. He plays the role of the Main tank perfectly with his great stats. His high ARMOUR stats and the SHIELD ability will also allow him to have much longer staying power on the battlefield. This allows all other units to be kept safe until he is taken down.

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2nd CARD SLOT

The Goblin Shaman occupies this slot. It's main role here to be the Debuff Support for the team. It will also fulfil the role of the backup tank should the main tank fall.

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3rd CARD SLOT

The Spirit Hoarder fills this slot. It is protected in the middle and it's ability TRIAGE will allow any backline units to be healed.

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4th CARD SLOT

Sorriel The Bale fills this slot. It is a hard hitting unit, albeit frail, that will punch a hole through enemy defences especially with DOUBLESTRIKE.

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5th CARD SLOT

Larissa Kerato occupies this slot. With her DOUBLESTRIKE and BLOODLUST, she will be the main DPS of the entire team. Given her low stats, she needs to be protected very well before she ramps up her damage.

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6th CARD SLOT

The Spirit Miner occupies the last slot. It packs a punch and also buffs the entire team thanks to SWIFTNESS. By sitting in the last slot, it's DODGE will also defend the team against SNEAK attacks.

I hope you're starting to see the pattern here in my team setup. 😉

⚔️🛡️Battle Action Report🛡️⚔️

As you can see, both of us fielded very different units in our matchup. We both used different splinters, and our unit selection was completely worlds apart too! My opponent went for a pure physical damage team while mine was also fully magic based. 😱

🔥FIRE🔥 VS 🐉DRAGON🐉

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My opponent used Grum Flameblade as his tank in the 1st slot which was a VERY good choice. With his great defensive stats and the VOID and VOID ARMOR ability to give it a huge advantage against magic attacks, this is a unit which will protect it's entire team until it falls.

The Creeping Ooze occupied his 2nd slot. It's main role was to simply debuff my team with SLOW. It would also probably take the role of backup tank.

His 3rd and 4th slots were filled with his SNEAK attackers in the form of the Kobold Miner and Sandworm. These 2 units could easily take out an unprepared opponent's backline.

His 5th and 6th slots were filled with Ranged DPSers in the form of the Supply Runner and Countess Sinash. Interestingly, they both had the SWIFTNESS ability too, giving his team a huge boost in speed overall.

All in all, I would say that the opponent picked a really strong team.

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My choice of the Main Tank was the Dumacke Orc who is perfect for this task. He has really high ARMOR stats in order to take extra hits to ensure that all the other units are protected. Not only that, it also has the SHIELD ability. This allows him to take reduced damage against physical damage units to last longer on the battlefield.

The Goblin Shaman comes next in the 2nd slot. It's WEAKEN ability "softens" up the opponent's army by reducing all his units HEALTH by 1.

The Spirit Hoarder occupies the 3rd slot and it is mainly there give my backline some healing support via it's TRIAGE ability.

The next 2 units consist of my main DPS-ers in the form of Sorriel and Larissa. Both of them are DOUBLESTRIKING magic units who really pack a punch. Sorriel also debuffs the opponent with it's BLIND ability, making them more likely to miss their physical attacks, while Larissa has BLOODLUST to further boost her overall stats if she lands a killing blow.

The Spirit Miner occupies the last slot. While it does good magic damage on it's own. It is there to defend the backline against SNEAK attacks thanks to it's DODGE ability. It also gives the entire team a speed buff with it's SWIFTNESS.

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The battle started out with all our units just duking it out pound for pound. It was a high mana game with 41 mana as the limit. The rulesets were HOLY PROTECTION & EQUALIZER.

• The first round saw both our sides launch a flurry of attacks. Both teams took a lot of damage trading blows, with both sides picking lots of offensive minded units. 🤣

• The opponent naturally hit harder than me due to his significant level advantage.

• However, Holy Protection allowed my units to take the brunt of the attacks unscathed.

• While my magic dps team could only do minimal damage against his anti magic Grum Tank, his units kept missing against mine too!

• Round 2 was another uneventful round as both sides continue whittling each other down slowly.

• Round 3 finally saw some action as a few lucky hits from my opponent got through the DODGE and BLIND debuffs and they managed to take my Spirit Miner down to a precarious 1 HP! Luckily it survived and was healed by the Spirit Hoarder.

• Most importantly, I finally took down his anti magic Grum and it was Larissa who landed the killing blow too, thus activating her BLOODLUST! 🩸🩸🩸

• The floodgates opened from here on forth as Larissa managed to land ALL the killing blows in subsequent rounds of combat. She turned into an unstoppable juggernaut and slaughtered the entire team.

• It was all over for the opponent now as I eventually mopped up his entire army. 💀💀💀

Talk about doing WAY MORE than it was supposed to!!! 😱🤯🥳 All I expected was for the HOLY PROTECTION ruleset to give me a slight advantage. Individually, on their own, my units would never be able to defend against such ridiculous amounts of damage. However it ended up being the entire reason for my win! By capitalizing on the ruleset, my units were able to just play the patient game to wait for my Larissa's BLOODLUST to get to uncontrollable levels! The opponent simply could not handle all that at all.

Well as you can see here in this GIF of my battle, the results were pretty good! 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

This was truly an eye opener! 😁🏆

Slowly, but surely, I wore down the opponent's team and the match ended up with me inflicting a crushing defeat. My team selection proved to be the edge I needed to eventually overpower my opponent. 💪🏻

🔮🔮🔮Hindsight is 20/20🔮🔮🔮

Would I have done anything differently? 🤔 This might have seemed like a disadvantage at the start but I ended up winning handily. IF I had to use the same cards again, there would be no better lineup than what I had already used for the match. Any other combination MIGHT have resulted in a loss for me. I'm really satisfied with the results against such a worthy opponent. 🏆🥇

💭🧐💭Ending Thoughts💭🧐💭

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I definitely can appreciate the ruleset HOLY PROTECTION and how it changes the dynamics of usual gameplay. This is one of those rulesets which can be turned into a huge advantage if surrounded with the proper team. The role it brings to the battlefield will give a player the edge in squeezing out every tiny advantage to get the win. 👍🏻

I hope this article has given you some insight into its potential. 😉

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To any new players who wish to explore the world of Splinterlands, do feel free to sign up with my REFERRAL LINK 😊.

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